Information-related behaviour as meaning-making processes: A study of science centre visitors

Introduction: This paper studies the science centre visitor experience from an information behaviour perspective. The study contributes to the area of casual-leisure information behaviour.
Method: The qualitative walk-along method rooted in ethnographic research was applied to study the in-situ visitor experience of 44 families (74 children and 70 adults) at a science centre in Denmark. An inductive content analysis approach was adopted focusing on three analytical themes.
Analysis: The concept of mediational means was used to analyse how the different exhibit features facilitate visitors’ meaning-making processes.
Results: Results from the study show how different exhibition features facilitate visitors’ information use and meaning-making processes in multiple ways providing rich opportunities for meaning-making. The results further illustrate, how visitors’ meaning-making processes become informed through a duality of cognitive and corporeal ways of knowing.
Conclusions: In the immersive and highly interactive exhibition, visitors mainly become informed about the importance of movement and health through corporeal information that is experienced through the situated body.